Chamber and committees

The previous minister is not making that up; she lived and breathed that legislation, and I took over the bill half way through.

The route map has been developed in collaboration with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, individual councils and other stakeholders. We did not want to take a top-down approach and say that all 32 local authorities have to manage their waste in a certain way. What we want is for local authorities to look at good practice that can be shared. The Verity house agreement is in place, and local authorities are in charge of managing their own business.

There will be geographical variations in the types of waste but SEPA and Zero Waste Scotland are doing an analysis of the current gaps in relation to the types of plastics, where they are being sent for reprocessing, whether there is opportunity for reprocessing in Scotland and what the associated volumes are. That will enable them to tell companies such as Celtic Renewables where the opportunities are and work with them to ascertain what they need, with an eye on the opportunity to expand their operations.

We have a really good waste sector in Scotland. We have companies such as Keenan Recycling and Celtic Renewables, which are expanding into different areas. This is an opportunity for them to do that with regard to plastics recycling. I will not reel off a lot of different types of plastics because I would be making it up if I did that, Mr Johnson. However, SEPA and Zero Waste Scotland are doing that analysis on behalf of the Government.

The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 is robust. It allows flexibility. I do not think that regulatory change will be required but co-ordination of the waste streams will be needed. I refer not only to the waste streams from Scotland. If plastic waste recycling of the types that I mentioned happens in Grangemouth, that will also be an offer to the rest of the UK. There are gaps in the types of plastic recycling that can happen in the UK, not just in Scotland. That is why it is critical that the Scottish Government and the UK Government work together. The intelligence that the UK Government has on the waste streams in the rest of the UK will help the business case for any such projects.

It made commercial decisions. I and Ed Miliband tried very hard to get it to make different decisions—

That is a question directly for them. What I would say is that the workers at the refinery will get other opportunities because of the high level of transferable skills that they have.

A good proportion of the workers at the refinery have always worked there, so they have never had to apply for other jobs or think about what other areas they might want to go into. They have gone from school into college and then into apprenticeships, and have been in the refinery for their whole working lives. That is a very unusual situation, but it is what the refinery has meant for Grangemouth.

The issue is not that the workers do not have transferable skills but that they have never had to think about applying for other jobs. They have never analysed the skills that they have and effectively marketed themselves to new employers. Work is being done at Forth Valley College to assist them to do that, and jobs fairs that are being run in association with that work are bringing in companies that recognise those people’s transferable skills and can offer them work.

However, Mr Coffey, you make a very good point. As marketable and highly skilled as those workers are, at the moment, a lot of the opportunities that they will be offered will require them to move. I come from a family that had to move because of a lack of a just transition—people will have heard me saying that my father was in shipbuilding and had to move in order to get work. The history of Scottish industry is full of stories of families having to relocate. It is not an easy thing to do and it is disruptive for families, so we want to ensure that people will have an opportunity to stay in the Grangemouth and Falkirk area—it is important to remember that it is not only Grangemouth that is affected; the surrounding area is affected, too. We want to prioritise medium-term opportunities for new businesses to come in, but we are also working with Petroineos, Forth Valley College and large Scottish companies who need workers with the skills that those workers have, so that as many of those people as possible can stay in the area.

As you have brought the matter up, convener, I have to say that the previous UK Government did not show an interest in putting money into any of those interventions. I have outlined what the Scottish Government did, including providing 50:50 match funding with Ineos to do a lot of those studies. The previous UK Government was not interested in removing the HEFA cap and, although a member of the Grangemouth future industry board, it stayed largely silent and was not interested in doing anything to save the refinery or doing anything like project willow.

We had already started to progress and flesh out project willow with Petroineos before the change in the UK Government. When that change happened, we were delighted that the new UK Government wanted to part-fund the project. Before that point, it had looked as though the Scottish Government and Petroineos would have to fund it, because the previous UK Government was not interested. With the change in Government, though, there was a different mindset, and each of the two Governments took a 50:50 share of the costs associated with project willow.

Personally, I think it is important that we look forward. Project willow has happened, and it has been very well received. Wherever we go, I and my UK Government counterparts have been speaking to investors about it; it is known about in Europe by the likes of RWE in Germany and all the big investors.

As Jan Robertson has outlined, there are 84 proposals coming forward—and that is just to date. The door is not closed on any of them, and I say to anyone who is watching this committee and has projects that they want to bring to us that they should absolutely do so. Of course, there are the approaches that are being made to Petroineos, too.

We could look back five years and start pointing fingers. However, the most important thing is that in the past year—and particularly in the past six months—project willow and the task force have moved things along in a swift, agile and focused way. I am feeling so much more confident than I did this time last year about the prospects for that site.

Project willow, the task force and the work that has been done in the Grangemouth future industry board—which we have not mentioned, but which has involved stakeholders from communities, Scottish Enterprise, Forth Valley College and so on—have been really important. Not only have lessons been learned from that work; it has provided us with a potential blueprint for how we could work in the future.

We must also look at the just transition plan for Mossmorran and other places that you have mentioned, convener. We are always looking at how we could improve and be not only agile but proactive—we have a just transition plan associated with the oil and gas sector in the north-east, for example.

I add that the just transition plan for Grangemouth should be published next week, subject to Cabinet approval.

First, it is not unusual for companies in development to have a landlord. If Ineos does not want to sell the refinery site and if it wants to be the site’s landlord, it will have responsibilities in relation to how the site is developed and it will have an awful lot of infrastructure that it must put right.

On issues that developers might be bringing up about the relationship with Ineos, I will come to Jan Robertson. A lot of the people who are speaking to us in the task force have already spoken to Petroineos. It is working in good faith with the people who approach it, some of whom have been redirected to the task force via Petroineos and vice versa. Conversations about what it would be required to do as a landlord are happening.

Petroineos wants development to happen on the site; it wants to work with us across both Governments, and it wants Scottish Enterprise to secure projects for it. That is in its interests as a landlord—it has not indicated that it would want to take forward any of the projects in project willow.

Quite a lot of work was done with Petroineos previously. When Michael Matheson was the relevant cabinet secretary, the Scottish Government funded studies on turning the site into a biorefinery. However, Petroineos’s board decided not to turn any of those proposals into reality—the shareholders on the board decided that they did not want to go there—and we are where we are, regrettably.

It is a source of regret that the refinery has stopped producing, because we have a situation where workers in the wider Grangemouth area are worried about what the future might hold—I do not have to tell you that, Ms Thomson. However, there have been constructive relationships between us and Petroineos, as well as between Petroineos and those who have come forward with proposals. I am not concerned, because companies build developments and have a landlord in lots of situations, and Ineos Olefins & Polymers will still have a footprint in the cluster.

I will bring in Chris Bryceland to explain the technical aspects and what has already been done at UK level.

You are making a point—I absolutely hear it—about what we have to do across all four nations of the UK to accelerate the recycling of plastic. We have our landfill ban, which is associated with that, and we are moving forward with the deposit return scheme as well. We also have the producer liability duties coming into play. Some of the projects that we are looking at—I guess that we should call those the willow projects—are about making chemicals from plastic. There is a market for that. I will bring in Chris Bryceland on the detail of that.

You are going to have to explain that to me—I have not seen that.

I am not telling you anything that you do not know, but the Scottish Government’s £25 million just transition fund for Grangemouth is in place to support the progression of those projects, as well as ancillary work around the just transition and skills interventions in the area. As part of the Falkirk and Grangemouth growth deal, £50 million has been given for work in the wider area. Jan Robertson will be able to give the specifics of the detail on private finance.

We have an offer, because we have a fund that is in place to support some of the development that is needed to make such proposals commercial. That bridging funding is needed for the projects to get to the commerciality point.

This will not be easy to summarise.

Recycling is one of our medium-term opportunities. The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 set the direction of travel in relation to where Scotland wants to be on the circular economy. We also have things happening at a pan-UK level, such as the deposit return scheme and the producer liability stream.

One thing that comes through the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 is that, wherever possible, we want to take as much as possible of our waste or feedstock to whatever domestic recycling opportunity exists; we do not want to be sending it elsewhere. We are therefore doing an analysis or study of what recycling opportunities look like in Scotland at the moment and where the gaps are, particularly with a view to the development of the DRS and the waste route map. That is a huge opportunity for the Grangemouth cluster, and we are mapping recycling facilities in Scotland and where the gaps and opportunities are. There are massive opportunities in that area. We want to know where the feedstock comes from and about any opportunities to turn plastics into fuels and so on.

We have engaged with a number of potential developers on the recommendation around the aggregation of waste plastics, on which we are working with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Zero Waste Scotland.

In relation to HEFA, there is obviously the investment and project side of things, but the other part of the task force’s work is to identify where regulatory change has to happen in order to remove any barriers to investment. A very live and granular conversation is being had about that. Most of the things that need to be done in relation to regulation sit with the UK Government, but it is completely open to looking at that.

We are not standing still and waiting for the regulations to change with regard to the HEFA cap; we are looking at what Scotland could offer in terms of feedstock. That is why the James Hutton Institute and Scotland’s Rural College are doing the pilot study. The study should report in July, after which there will be trials, in late summer, of the type of crops and the viability of those crops. I will be working closely with my colleagues in the rural affairs team in the Scottish Government, because that work will make a material difference to what we grow in Scotland and where the land is for growing it.

I have mentioned some of the issues around sustainable aviation fuel. My assessment is that airlines want to use more SAF, but that there are few opportunities for them to buy that in the UK, which leads to some of the issues that Mr MacDonald mentioned and to them procuring quite a lot of it from Europe. Regulation in that area is reserved to the UK Government.

No one has mentioned hydrogen so far, but we have had some good news around RWE’s plans, which are supported by Ineos. Ineos was successful in the second hydrogen allocation round, which is fantastic news, because it means that there is an opportunity to have RWE come and invest in the Grangemouth area and produce hydrogen there. There is a lot going on around hydrogen, but, again, regulation in that area sits at a UK-Government level.

I assure Daniel Johnson that there is a synergy on the part of the two Governments’ ambitions to remove barriers in order for progress to be made on some of the projects that Jan Robertson and her team are looking at. If there are any regulatory barriers, they will be identified, flushed out and, hopefully, tackled.